


in between our little wars

by andibeth82



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 10:30:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3974794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn’t about <i>not</i> trusting. This is about <i>regaining</i> trust. Regaining himself, through her guidance, a level of permission he gives her unconditionally, that he’s always given her, even when he hasn’t realized it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in between our little wars

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the **towerparty** smut lightning round challenge on LJ. Takes place mostly after Avengers, obviously non AoU compliant. Thank you to **gecko** for super quick beta! All other mistakes are my own.
> 
> My prompt was _a game is something you can win; maybe something kind of fun_. I'm not sure how well the finished product fits this, but in my defense, it did start in an entirely different direction. I think in the end, I just missed writing angst assassin sex.

It begins where it ends –- in the grittiest parts of New York.

It’s 2003 and it’s a year where summer hasn’t been kind to the city, though Natasha doesn’t know that. She only pretends to, hiding her ignorance under patented layers of built-up stories and overwrought emotions, her reactions visible by way of the men she leaves out to dry and the studios she desecrates. Occasionally she angles her body a certain way, flicks her cigarette towards the street _just so_ , the air of resentment epitomized clearly in her movements. This time, here in this sticky city that bleeds blood when the sun goes down, she is Nina, and Nina is harsh and Nina is brash and Nina has lived her whole life looking over her shoulder and not caring about what she has to do to survive.

_Don’t look at me. Don’t smile at me. Leave me alone._

He doesn’t. He’s been following her for days, though for some reason he’s kept his distance, even in places where she knows he could have had an easy shot at taking her down. She was at first puzzled by it, a game that frustrated her to no end, but eventually, she came to accept it. Nina didn’t have time to wonder about when some American man was going to take her down. Nina could take care of herself, in this city where bodies pile up in deserted houses after she’s done with them.

She exits the subway car and emerges from the bowels of the city, shoving through the turnstile as she climbs the stairs towards light.

 

***

 

It’s 2003 and he’s got her cornered in an alley, one arm pushed against her throat, giving her just enough space to breathe without feeling compromised. His forehead is inches from her own; she can practically smell the sweat that she knows is probably dripping down his back, soaking what she assumes has to be his heavy underarmor.

She wants to run and she should run, but _want_ and _should_ have never been in her vocabulary, not even when she wasn’t on the street. So she maneuvers herself against his hold instead and sticks her free hand underneath his pants, feeling him react almost immediately, his legs bucking as her fingers inch towards his lower extremities.

He doesn’t hesitate and doesn’t ask questions, he does nothing except grind against her as the sun falls behind a building that seems to dwarf them, and his body shields her own like it’s the protection she’s been missing her entire life.

 

***

 

It’s 2012 and it’s a year where summer hasn’t been kind to the city, and Natasha finds him in a bolthole she hasn’t used for years, sitting on the bed and cleaning his gun with a practiced methodology that seems downright sluggish. He doesn’t look up when she walks in, or when she deposits a brown paper bag by his thigh.

“I go all the way to Times Square to get you _Five Guys_ , and you can’t even be bothered to say hello,” she comments as she tugs the elastic out of her hair, letting down dark red strands. She knows it probably needs a cut, but keeping up appearances has been the least of her worries lately, and it’s not like her job doesn’t afford her the chance to don various styles anyway.

“Thanks,” he responds dryly. She hates the way he looks -- ragged and drawn, bruises and cuts still littering the scape of his body, his eyes still harboring the vacancy that she hasn’t been able to shake from her mind since the first time she saw him as not himself. She sits down next to him, pushing the bag away, running her finger across his wrist and over the scar left by the bones of her own teeth. He inhales sharply at her touch, tenses, and she can almost see the way his insides are tightening, threatening to break off into brittle pieces if he so much as moves the wrong way.

“How did you know I was here?”

Natasha shrugs. “I didn’t. Lucky guess.” She moves her hand off of his arm and towards the inside of his thigh, slowly testing the waters as she lets her palm travel up between his legs, settling at the base of his crotch, gauging his reaction. He flinches, tensing further, to the point that she thinks he might actually become so rigid that he’ll fall over. Natasha stills her movements, breathing a silent sigh of relief when she feels him reciprocate, sensing his cock starting to harden in his jeans. She’s not going to do this if he doesn’t want it. Loki’s mind games had been more than a violation; they had taken advantage of him, and Natasha knows Clint’s had enough grief thinking about what’s been done to his body without his consent. With her free hand, she drags a palm over his jawline, gently turning his face towards her until she can meet his lips fully. She lets herself linger on the surface of his mouth, like a teenager sharing a first kiss, and when she feels confident about the way he’s breathing she pushes in further, sliding her tongue between his teeth.

Clint presses a hand against her neck in what Natasha recognizes as a reaction out of instinct, one that she’s used to after so many years of intimacy. But there’s an aggressiveness to his movements that seems more feral, and as she continues to kiss him, she can feel the weight of his fingers pressing against her skin, crawling dangerously close to her windpipe. Natasha shifts slowly, keeping her actions controlled so that she doesn’t give off a sense of panic ( _trust, I trust you_ ) but just enough so that he seems to recognize how hard he’s been touching her.

“Sorry,” he breathes as she pulls her face away to meet his eyes, and she sees the sadness lingering with the hollowness as he lets up on his grip. She can’t be mad at him, she knows. Not for this. Not for something that will likely stay with him for the rest of his life, even when he doesn’t want it to, quietly creeping in when he least expects it.

“It’s okay,” she says quietly, kissing him again, her movements light and steady, a distraction she hopes can keep his mind focused while she fumbles one-handedly with the button and zipper on his jeans. Clint edges up, breaking the kiss and shifting as Natasha pulls down the zipper. He shoves his pants and boxers to his ankles and when he sits back down again, Natasha wastes no time in wrapping her hand around his cock, alternating between rough, quick strokes and gentle massages.

“Relax,” she murmurs as she rubs her nose against his cheek, continuing to fondle him. She moves her lips to the space between his eyes, as if she can kiss away the emptiness she sees haunting him there. His lids flutter closed and she lazily keeps up a rhythm on his cock until she feels her own body start to twitch with a need to unravel.

Letting go, she stands up and produces a condom from her back pocket that she tosses onto the bed before stripping out of her own clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor, along with her bra and underwear. Clint glances up as she undresses and leans forward, as if he means to rise up to meet her, but Natasha steps in front of him and puts two hands on his shoulders, gently forcing him back down onto the bed.

“Stay,” she says firmly but gently, running her hands down his arms as she steps over his legs, straddling him. She lowers herself to his body but doesn’t penetrate, instead choosing to rub the folds of her cunt against his cock, just enough so that she can feel the wetness of his precome, which drives a rush of pleasure through her stomach. Natasha reaches between them with one hand and runs her hand over the head of his dick, reveling in how hard it is, lightly dancing her fingers across what she knows is sensitive skin. With her other hand, she reaches out and Clint reacts almost immediately, grabbing for the condom lying next to him. He tears it open as Natasha arches her hips upwards, pushing back slightly while he rolls the rubber over his enlarged cock, smoothing it down with two fingers.

Natasha repositions herself as she lowers her body back down towards his own, this time carefully steering herself so that she slides into him. She feels him lock himself inside her, lets her own thighs tighten around his hips in a response that’s mutual, that she knows gives the message _it’s okay_ as he bucks up, hitting at her most sensitive spot. Natasha bites down on her lip, trying to regulate the rhythm, because as much as this is -- with all the things that they do -- a shared experience, she knows that this is also about him. It’s about making sure he’s doing this because he _wants_ to, because he wants _her_ , because they both want each other mutually they way they did once years ago without even thinking about it, and not because he wants to push himself over an edge that he already feels like he’s on the verge of.

She catches his eye as she rocks up. For a brief second, she manages to see the fear settling in and thinks it’s her –- that it’s her he’s scared of, that it’s her he’s holding back from, that it’s her he’s worried he’ll hurt. But when the flicker of emotion passes in the next blink, she knows innately that this isn’t that. This isn’t about _not_ trusting. This is about regaining trust. Regaining himself, through her guidance, a level of permission he gives her unconditionally, that he’s _always_ given her, even when he hasn’t realized it.

Natasha’s fingers curl into the skin at the back of his head, clutching at the too-short hair at the nape of his neck, and she lets her head fall into his shoulder as he increases his thrusts, moving in tandem with her own flow. She pushes up one final time and hears him cry out quietly, feels him release, waits until she’s sure he’s come completely before she follows. They normally try to match their orgasms, but she hopes that the delay will work to give him some measure of control, of pleasure; something that’s rightfully his and something that no one can take away. As he lapses into quiet, Natasha starts to feel uncertain and then realizes how rare it that both of them are so discrete when it comes to intimacy, unless it’s for reasons relating to the job. She can almost hear his voice breaking the silence, even though he hasn’t said a word.

_I am okay. I am okay. I am okay. I am okay. I am okay._

Natasha stills, holding his head against her chest, feeling the hot beats of irregular breaths mingled with the wetness of what she thinks might be a combination of sweat and tears. When she’s satisfied with both the rate of his breathing and his heartbeat, she pulls out slowly, never breaking eye contact, not even as she situates herself beside him again, naked on the bed. The condom hangs limply off his now spent cock, and Natasha thinks about how any other time, no matter how tired she was or no matter how quick they made each other orgasm, she would have rolled her eyes, demanded he remove it and throw it away rather than just letting it _sit_ there.

But this isn’t any other time.

Natasha curls her hand into his palm, stroking the skin, trying not to think about how the last time she had touched him with this type of passion and force was because she was trying not to kill him.

“My burger’s going to get cold,” Clint says after far too long and Natasha barks out a laugh, and he tries to smile.

 

***

 

(It’s 2003 and she’s trying to convince herself she hasn’t just made the dumbest mistake of her life by getting off on someone who she knows has been trying to put her in a body bag for at least a week.)

“Come back with me,” he says as she pulls up her pants. “Back home.” Home, Natasha – Nina – knows has to be somewhere in this godforsaken city, she’s seen him too frequently to think that he would just show up here and know the streets as well as he does. She arches a brow, carefully considering her words, each resulting letter rooted in distrust.

“Why?”

Clint shrugs, pulling up his own pants, and she tries not to pay attention to the fact that his hands are still wet. He wipes them unceremoniously on the back of his jeans, and reaches for the bow and arrow he’s stashed against the wall while they fucked. “Because it’s gotta be better than living on the street. And because why not?”

 

***

 

It begins where it ends, and as Natasha removes her sunglasses and steps into the subway car, falling into step behind Clint’s broad frame, she thinks that maybe things will be okay.


End file.
